Hi all, my name is Casper and I just bought a 1978 Super Decathlon. The engine has 800 hours and seems fine, but the fuselage and wings need new fabric. That's why I decided to do a full restoration.
My goal is to get the aircraft in 'new' condition, and also update everything so the airplane is most similar as possible to a newly built Super Decathlon.
Besides this I'm curious if there are possibilies to turn the plane into an Extreme Decathlon even.
For this, I'm gonna need a plan. The main project will be executed by an experienced company in The Netherlands (where I live). But I'd like to make a plan myself first, to decide which parts I need to buy etc.
I am looking for people who are able and willing to give me some advice. Is this forum the right place for these kind of questions?
I'll be creating a website on which I'll post the complete restauration-project, so everybody is invited to follow.
Thanks for your reply! I'll use all the Service Letters. As far as I know the airplane already has the aluminum spar wings installed 10 years ago. The 'Extreme' plan is cancelled as of now :-) Some questions I recently ran into: - Should I replace the main landing gear by aluminum, even if the current gear is still working fine and I'm not changing to the larger TrailBlazer-propeller?
- Should I replace the propeller? Currently I think the plane has the standard aluminum cs propeller.
- I learned that I can save weight by updating the prop, gear, carbon interior etc. But this comes with a price. How big is the difference in performance with these weight-savings? (assuming that I am pretty heavy myself, 110kg / 240pounds).
Thanks!